


if i don't wake

by neverfadingrain



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Inception Fusion, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverfadingrain/pseuds/neverfadingrain
Summary: '“Don’t tell me you’re worried about him.”Porthos rolls his eyes. “M’not,” he says, gruffly, hunching his shoulders against the Parisian autumn chill. His fingers curl around the bit of metal in his jacket pocket, body-warm, and Porthos takes comfort in the way it snags and catches on his too big fingers.'Or, a quick Musketeers/Inception fusion. Just cuz.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	if i don't wake

**Author's Note:**

> sooooo this little oneshot has been in my WIP folder for wayyy too long. i dedicated my nano project this year to finishing up a bunch of old projects that just needed to stop living in my head already. here's hoping i can keep that momentum going through some longer works. no beta, because it's not even 2k. shrug emoji.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about him.”

Porthos rolls his eyes. “M’not,” he says, gruffly, hunching his shoulders against the Parisian autumn chill. His fingers curl around the bit of metal in his jacket pocket, body-warm, and Porthos takes comfort in the way it snags and catches on his too big fingers.

Aramis leans into the space between them, darting a look at Porthos’ face, and laughs merrily. “You are!” he exclaims, as if it’s a surprise, and claps a hand on Porthos’ shoulder. “Athos has been doing this longer than either of us, and besides. He’s got Constance watching his back. He’s just fine.”

“I know that,” Porthos grumbles, leaning briefly into the pressure of Aramis’ hand.

“So why are you worried?”

Why is he worried? Because in the five years they’ve been regularly running jobs together, Porthos has seen only occasional hints that Athos is capable of taking care of himself. Because the man has only two states of being—he’s either dreaming or he’s drunk—and an impressive lack of self-preservation. Because the last job they’d pulled had gone dangerously awry, only saved due to Constance’s meticulous information-gathering and a last ditch forge from Aramis, and when they’d emerged from the dream Athos had looked more haggard than ever.

Because their rules mandate a six week break between jobs, where it’s every man for himself while the heat dies down, which means there’s been nobody watching Athos’ back for the past month and a half.

“Why  _ aren’t _ you worried?” Porthos asks, instead of giving a voice to all his fears.

Aramis grins at him, bright and sharp, a lightning flash of mirth. “Because he’s  _ Athos _ ,” he whispers, like that sums up all of his ridiculous naïve faith in the other man.

The sad thing is, it does. Aramis’ faith sustains him, gives him the courage to stretch himself farther and more recklessly, and his faith in God is rivaled in strength only by his faith in his friends. Porthos is different in that regard; he puts his trust in the strength of his hands, into the intricate puzzles that he works into every single maze, into the reflexes that growing up in the Court had honed to a knife’s edge.

“One day, he’s going to get himself into a trouble he can’t insult his way out of,” Porthos predicts. “And we’ll be stuck right there in the mud next to him.”

“One day,” Aramis agrees. He catches sight of the little café where they’d agreed to meet up with the others and brightens immediately, practically skipping ahead of Porthos down the street. They cross the street without incident, stopping inside the café first for coffee before making their way out to the little veranda where Athos, Constance and an unfamiliar young man are already sitting.

“Oh good, you made it,” Constance says dryly. She looks incredibly relieved, for some reason, and immediately scoots her chair over to make room for them between her and the newcomer.

Porthos nods to her, then Athos, in greeting. The presence of a stranger immediately has his hackles up, especially one that Constance is so outwardly disapproving of. Their point woman is the best in the business, with ruthless organizational skills and instincts more commonly found on a tiger—and an impeccably tuned bullshit-meter to boot. Porthos, who had grown up cheating and swindling just to be able to survive, has never once managed to successfully lie to her.

He and Aramis slide into the open seats at the table, taking in the stranger’s dark hair and eyes, the youthful scowl on his brown face, the way his eyes flick defensively to Athos. Who, as if in response, lifts what is probably his second bottle of the day and takes a heartfelt swig.

“Who’s the whelp?” Porthos asks, when no one else looks about to break the silence.

This garners him an immediate glare from said ‘whelp.’ Porthos bares his most fearsome grin, gratified at the little gulp of fear the stranger tries and fails to disguise.

“This,” Athos says, in the longsuffering tones of someone who knows he’s going to regret his next words for the next decade  _ at least _ , “is d’Artagnan.”

“Aha,” Aramis says delicately. At least, as delicately as Aramis is capable of, which is to say not very delicately at all. “And what is d’Artagnan doing here?”

Athos gives the entire table a wine-sodden glare. It’s barely midday, and he’s already well into the bottle; Porthos has a sudden foreboding fear for the state of his friend’s liver if their acquaintance with the boy continues. “d’Artagnan has a sudden and pressing interest in our line of work,” Athos drawls, at the same time the boy spits out, “I’m the best chemist you’ll find in all of Paris!”

“You’re not a chemist yet,” Constance snaps at him, slicing her pastry into perfectly even squares with menace. She nearly skewers Porthos’ hand with her fork when he attempts to lift a piece, glaring at him until he takes his hand back sheepishly. Another point of contention between them—all of Porthos’ years as a pickpocket, and he’s never lifted anything off her without being caught in the act.

It's infuriating, having all of his skills ruthlessly defanged and dismantled with seemingly no effort at all on Constance’s part. Porthos is both terrified of her and half in love with her based on Constance’s sheer competence alone.

Aramis hums, considering the boy with overtly flirtatious eyes. “I hadn’t realized we were in the market for a chemist?” he idly asks Athos, sipping at his coffee. d’Artagnan glares at them all sullenly, thunderstorms crackling under his skin.

“We’re not.”

“Then how—?” Aramis seems to think better of his question, leaving it hanging unasked in the air between them all.

Constance rolls her eyes, elbowing Athos in the gut. When he turns a gimlet-eyed stare on her, she smirks, utterly unrepentant. “I was led to understand that d’Artagnan overheard Athos discussing the newest job and promptly declared himself the only chemist Athos would ever need. Because he’s a  _ prodigy _ , and apparently that gives him leave to intrude on other people’s business dealings.”

Porthos guffaws at that, especially when d’Artagnan flushes a dull red in response. He nudges Aramis, who looks equally entertained. “Still think I was wrong to worry about him?” he asks, but his tone is filled with glee.

“I was just fine on my own, just like always,” Athos starts, but is unable to continue when Aramis, Porthos and Constance all descend into raucous laughter. He settles for taking another mouthful of wine straight from the bottle, resentment crackling along the breadth of his shoulders, and he looks so similar to d’Artagnan that it sets them off again.

“So, whelp,” Porthos says, when they’ve all finally managed to calm down again aside from a few random giggles from Aramis. “You’re telling us that you’ve got a better dream compound than this?”

d’Artagnan startles in his chair, turning to stare all around them with wide eyes. “Wait—is this?”

Porthos and Aramis exchange twin smirks.

Constance rolls her eyes.

Athos takes another long pull from his bottle.

“Are we dreaming?” d’Artagnan asks, in a comically hushed whisper. He’s leaning into the center of the table like that’s going to make someone less likely to overhear their conversation—nevermind that if they are actually dreaming, the only people around to possibly overhear are the illusions produced by a dreamer’s subconscious.

“Someone give the boy a prize,” Constance says, dry as a desert, over the sound of Aramis’ delighted wheezing.

“Who—”

Porthos waves a hand, ruthlessly suppressing the itch of eyes on the back of his neck. He’s perfectly safe here, he tells himself. His friends are welcome in his dreaming mind. And if Athos accidentally brings his ghosts into the dream with him, Porthos knows about all of the labyrinthian tricks built into this landscape. He can escape at any time.

Slowly, all of the pedestrians and café patrons continue about their subconscious lives.

“Aramis wanted to show me the new faces he’s been working on, before you all got here,” Porthos informs Athos, cheerily ignoring the sputtering d’Artagnan.

“Is that so?” Athos drawls.

“We’re in South Africa, mon ami,” Aramis says, in hilarious contradiction to the fact that they’re sitting on the veranda of Porthos’ favorite Parisian café. “I needed to make sure I was able to…blend in, as it were. You all will be glad to know that my face is as beautiful as ever.”

“I finished the reconnaissance you asked for three days ago,” Constance says after delicately swallowing the last bite of her pastry and setting her silverware down primly on the plate.

d’Artagnan, glaring down at the table like it’s done something to personally offend him, mutters mutinously, “I  _ do _ have a better dream compound than this, as a matter of fact.”

Porthos grins. He’s gotten five new potential maze layouts prepared since they finished the last job, just to give the team some options to work with. As slippery as he almost always is, Porthos likes having multiple back doors to use in case things go catastrophically wrong. What with how their last job turned out, there’s no such thing as  _ too careful _ anymore.

“So are you going to tell us what the new job is, now, or should we start guessing?” Porthos asks their leader.

Athos drains his wine bottle, setting it shakily down in the very center of the table. There’s a dangerous smirk playing in the corners of his mouth. “Gentlemen, lady,” he drawls. “How do you feel about robbing the South African government?”


End file.
